INTRODUCING BREWART DRY HOPS

[xpsTech]

On 15/09/2020 at 6:02 AM, Barrelboy said:

I’m starting to get fairly accurate since logging fermentation times for each brew and have nearly all 2020 yeast sachets. To me if you put your hops in a bit early it doesn’t hurt as the vigorous fermentation period is over.

I wouldn't put the dry hops in before the Droid says so, as it will likely result in a delayed (marathon) EOF detection as Alan discovered.

Can you guys keep a secret? 🙊 "Big Brewer" is looking at optimising the timing of the dry hop addition... shhh!

[Rob Courtney]

10 minutes ago, xpsTech said:

 

Can you guys keep a secret? 🙊

Think it has been pretty well established that the answer is no

[Alan Batchelor]

I have another brew on the go. I will wait for the notification of dry hops addition but I am thinking personally I will prefer the dry hops to work with the yeast rather than EOF. I think my end results will be good but I have a feeling I will prefer the longer dry hop time. It will be interesting to compare both methods. I can see me doing a hybrid dry hopping procedure. Dry hop with maybe 50g during fermentation like Citra and Galaxy. Then end with 50g of the more bitter hops at time Driod requires. This should hopefully give me fruitier with a lighter bitter taste.

PS if it takes 20 days then so be it if it comes out fantastic 🤪

Alan

[Dustin Frothman]

55 minutes ago, xpsTech said:

Can you guys keep a secret? 🙊 "Big Brewer" is looking at optimising the timing of the dry hop addition... shhh!

I guessed at something similar earlier this week. It makes sense that as they collect more fermentation data for each recipe it will be possible to optimise the brewing programs.

[xpsTech]

25 minutes ago, Dustin Frothman said:

I guessed at something similar earlier this week. It makes sense that as they collect more fermentation data for each recipe it will be possible to optimise the brewing programs.

Yes it does make sense and the improvements have been evident.  The BeerDroid hit the market in 2015 at firmware version P009, five years later it's on P017; the majority of updates delivering improvements and new features. Kudos @BrewArt Team your customer/product support has been excellent 👍

[Dustin Frothman]

12 hours ago, xpsTech said:

Yes it does make sense and the improvements have been evident.  The BeerDroid hit the market in 2015 at firmware version P009, five years later it's on P017; the majority of updates delivering improvements and new features. Kudos @BrewArt Team your customer/product support has been excellent 👍

Couldn't agree more. The customer service is outstanding and goes way beyond my expectations.

8 firmware updates in 5 years is really impressive. If only the technology I interact with in work was updated that regularly. 😶 

[Captain 3 Droids]

On 16/09/2020 at 10:47 PM, xpsTech said:

I wouldn't put the dry hops in before the Droid says so, as it will likely result in a delayed (marathon) EOF detection as Alan discovered.

Can you guys keep a secret? 🙊 "Big Brewer" is looking at optimising the timing of the dry hop addition... shhh!

I’ve been thinking about this. I’d say there probably would be an issue with a delay if you just drop the hops in before EOF, however I haven’t experience that (or noted extra fermentation time) over many brews when a hop bag or ss hop ball is used. 

When just dropping the hops in loosely this may effect the EOF performance due to the surface area being covered with hop debris? Thoughts?

Cheers Mark

[xpsTech]

1 hour ago, Barrelboy said:

I’ve been thinking about this. I’d say there probably would be an issue with a delay if you just drop the hops in before EOF, however I haven’t experience that (or noted extra fermentation time) over many brews when a hop bag or ss hop ball is used. 

When just dropping the hops in loosely this may effect the EOF performance due to the surface area being covered with hop debris? Thoughts?

Cheers Mark

Spot on Mark, hops in a bag or hop ball have minimal impact on the EOF determination, loose hops do have an impact.

When adding "contained" hops early, take care not to add them within a few hours of when the Droid is due to do a fermentation test, this is approx. every 24 hours from when the you started the brew.

[Captain 3 Droids]

19 minutes ago, xpsTech said:

Spot on Mark, hops in a bag or hop ball have minimal impact on the EOF determination, loose hops do have an impact.

When adding "contained" hops early, take care not to add them within a few hours of when the Droid is due to do a fermentation test, this is approx. every 24 hours from when the you started the brew.

Thanks, and a good tip about the few hours before the fermentation test. Will remember that.

Cheers 

[Damian Ryan]

Just used the hop filter for the first time,

I made a pineapple crush IPA.

I did not have my firm ware updated so just set the droid for an ale.

I, like a lot of you misjudged the length of fermentation. After a day and a half the wort was frothing up and flowing out the side of the droid. So after 6 days I put my first 50 gms of hops in,9 days another 50 went in,12 days another 50. EOF was after 18 days!

The filter struggled at first with the hops, but after turning the tap on and off a few times it cleared up and overall worked exceptionally well considering the amount of hops. The filter was full of hops and I guess acted as a hop torpedo would.

I will upgrade my firmware now and just add the hops when it tells me to.

By the way I added a little more water to the droid and got 13 bottles out of it.

 

[Dustin Frothman]

18 hours ago, Damian Ryan said:

Just used the hop filter for the first time,

I made a pineapple crush IPA.

I did not have my firm ware updated so just set the droid for an ale.

I, like a lot of you misjudged the length of fermentation. After a day and a half the wort was frothing up and flowing out the side of the droid. So after 6 days I put my first 50 gms of hops in,9 days another 50 went in,12 days another 50. EOF was after 18 days!

The filter struggled at first with the hops, but after turning the tap on and off a few times it cleared up and overall worked exceptionally well considering the amount of hops. The filter was full of hops and I guess acted as a hop torpedo would.

I will upgrade my firmware now and just add the hops when it tells me to.

By the way I added a little more water to the droid and got 13 bottles out of it.

 

Good to hear Damian. The filter certainly works and works really well. I also tested it with 150 grams of hops without issue. The cold crash is the key to settling the bulk of the debris and I can confirm that the updated firmware (P017) works as intended and moves the brew through each of the stages with the correct timings and notifications.

After watching this brew go through the program the only suggestion I have is that there should be a push notification for the cold crash or "Clearing Hops" stage just for consistency. I will raise this as a feature upgrade/suggestion.

I have the Jolly Roger Pale Ale on now and it should be finished later today. 10 days all up including 2 for dry hopping and 2 for the cold crash.

[dcm]

So, I'm into my first dry hop Brewart recipe: mountain IPA.  The hop notes seem much sharper and the beer holds its head well. Previously, the head would disappear quite quickly it seems. 

As an early adopter, I had to manually cold-crash with p0016 but it worked good.  Consider me converted...  I've upgraded my droid to p0017 and I've just moved my first "Point IPA" into secondary. 

The filter works just great BUT I bottle into swing-tops.  The bottle adapter just doesn't seem to fly for me.  It leaks prolifically at the junction with the filler pipe to the point where I must manually switch the tap off and on whilst bottling to manage beer loss.

Maybe I'm doing it wrong?  Love the beer though.

 

dcm

[Dustin Frothman]

5 minutes ago, dcm said:

So, I'm into my first dry hop Brewart recipe: mountain IPA.  The hop notes seem much sharper and the beer holds its head well. Previously, the head would disappear quite quickly it seems. 

As an early adopter, I had to manually cold-crash with p0016 but it worked good.  Consider me converted...  I've upgraded my droid to p0017 and I've just moved my first "Point IPA" into secondary. 

The filter works just great BUT I bottle into swing-tops.  The bottle adapter just doesn't seem to fly for me.  It leaks prolifically at the junction with the filler pipe to the point where I must manually switch the tap off and on whilst bottling to manage beer loss.

Maybe I'm doing it wrong?  Love the beer though.

 

dcm

I've read that you need to push the bottling wand in quite firmly.

This is probably best done prior to connecting the dry hop filter to the Droid tap.

[Robert Pretty]

I just used the filter for the first time as well. Works really well. Just kegged and bottled the Hop-sessed IPA. For bottling use just a quarter of the bottling valve tube. Just cut it off. Tilt your bottles slightly, away you go. Yes you do need to push it in hard.

Edited September 23, 2020 by Robert Pretty

[Alan Batchelor]

Ok the first brew using dry hops with filter is the best so far. I was losing hope that I could actually get consistent beer from the Driod. No as much after taste but still there but  am only 11 days in secondary. A very nice aroma though so that’s a million times better. That said I have had a few purchased beers before this so I will have to reserve judgment until I start with this beer. I used cane sugar as the carbonation for this beer. I have refined sugar and brewart drops to compare. I still think the DME is not the way I want to go. The LME I have brewing now might be better but ultimately I think creating/boiling my own wort with real grains will be my final solution. 

Gooner ‘89 heavily hopped lager with some changes to make it slightly closer to a Pale Ale..

Happiest I’ve been so far 🤪🤪🤪🤪
 

~Alan

[dcm]

On 23/09/2020 at 9:24 PM, Robert Pretty said:

I just used the filter for the first time as well. Works really well. Just kegged and bottled the Hop-sessed IPA. For bottling use just a quarter of the bottling valve tube. Just cut it off. Tilt your bottles slightly, away you go. Yes you do need to push it in hard.

Yep, you really need to shove it in and once it's home, it doesn't look like I can get it back out so cleaning will be interesting.

Last week I made some Narci-Citrus IPA using the dry-hop version.  This calls for THREE sachets of hops.  Everything to date has been two.

It seemed to work ok, I used the (wrong but close) Y4 yeast.  Fermentation was, well, vigorous and it smells great.

There was a lot of hops in the beer.  I was expecting that the filter might clog.  It didn't but I still had problems bottling the beer.  Upon examination, it seems that hops had formed kind of a plug in the spigot. I have hop bags somewhere but I'm a bit wary about limiting the exposure of the beer to the hops.  I'm wondering if I should invest in a hop tube?    Something like:

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Stainless-Steel-Homebrew-Beer-Dry-Filter-Hop-Tube-Spiders-Home-Brew-Keg-Bomb-Bag/392877206878?epid=28040131289&_trkparms=ispr%3D1&hash=item5b794e6d5e:g:a9oAAOSw3ChfEqo1&amdata=enc%3AAQAFAAACYBaobrjLl8XobRIiIML1V4Imu%2Fn%2BzU5L90Z278x5ickkyMJZWL%2BqFSgQ3TOOe%2FNr7m1npaopRR7%2FDnPLZf%2FJ8PrVYrkh7G%2BT4SmsRTrYrNyuwRH9udp4gKR3aKDy%2FMomMqWgrJuwIkX27jbsytVW5L%2BfimOl62563yRu97a5R0vDw3orTQygcfITnNc%2BeolIUY4ng%2FBFbwm%2F8qxEsPh%2BVJ4JuZM%2FvBZjdPCNKd9U%2Fe30ZkY7IJ7tlavXfoUl%2BCgskIL69yV8d941aHGhOojv8RFSMm3%2BRPp8g%2F1DLyMiyFDsSS3dFfPH9uLiX80T8Y8%2FuHweApeT%2FautymI%2FC7Tc98v%2F9T0gMchLpfDD3ULmTIBRWoFv15SUB0vrLSx9pM7Yz6Y0DkZEyLo4u5J2JWGDxbu3IIK%2FrvPmDCEi0UkMnzhxVckXdtAGjC1WasrP9SJsQCqWJ4QgdVHPbCZoFgcNnYfiX3UDe2XI6Y2P0xgmd%2F0ujSnUWzesngAs3SWuXX%2BbZie%2FuqExCb38x1OBHkv5Yd8QQah1QIGeOQ1NbQ5XyXJoa1757t8UVcRDx8O5xP0faKu9h0tQ0lkoep8CVAfRnvDueYarK1t%2BwqqWZcyBcQsQ0F5VXG1cm5aJoKVz4o7cbVA%2FYuH31FogVpcn98jMpKA3ib%2F2IxqzhzLmCOVctS2mmyAfAFZ1FIIoonJtxlyAO8%2BujEUky3TBVfr7DMAkur%2BIn%2B4U4WvBylkkr6sD3L23St3mpqfibX%2Bn8AS4l9VbI%2Fy7CI87oULddvsdbIcpsuSVKf76dXOlXlE658oT%2BNT9|cksum%3A39287720687861340ce5a28247debd273b6c72860cb0|ampid%3APL_CLK|clp%3A2334524

Thoughts?

[Dustin Frothman]

1 hour ago, dcm said:

Yep, you really need to shove it in and once it's home, it doesn't look like I can get it back out so cleaning will be interesting.

Last week I made some Narci-Citrus IPA using the dry-hop version.  This calls for THREE sachets of hops.  Everything to date has been two.

It seemed to work ok, I used the (wrong but close) Y4 yeast.  Fermentation was, well, vigorous and it smells great.

There was a lot of hops in the beer.  I was expecting that the filter might clog.  It didn't but I still had problems bottling the beer.  Upon examination, it seems that hops had formed kind of a plug in the spigot. I have hop bags somewhere but I'm a bit wary about limiting the exposure of the beer to the hops.  I'm wondering if I should invest in a hop tube?    Something like:

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Stainless-Steel-Homebrew-Beer-Dry-Filter-Hop-Tube-Spiders-Home-Brew-Keg-Bomb-Bag/392877206878?epid=28040131289&_trkparms=ispr%3D1&hash=item5b794e6d5e:g:a9oAAOSw3ChfEqo1&amdata=enc%3AAQAFAAACYBaobrjLl8XobRIiIML1V4Imu%2Fn%2BzU5L90Z278x5ickkyMJZWL%2BqFSgQ3TOOe%2FNr7m1npaopRR7%2FDnPLZf%2FJ8PrVYrkh7G%2BT4SmsRTrYrNyuwRH9udp4gKR3aKDy%2FMomMqWgrJuwIkX27jbsytVW5L%2BfimOl62563yRu97a5R0vDw3orTQygcfITnNc%2BeolIUY4ng%2FBFbwm%2F8qxEsPh%2BVJ4JuZM%2FvBZjdPCNKd9U%2Fe30ZkY7IJ7tlavXfoUl%2BCgskIL69yV8d941aHGhOojv8RFSMm3%2BRPp8g%2F1DLyMiyFDsSS3dFfPH9uLiX80T8Y8%2FuHweApeT%2FautymI%2FC7Tc98v%2F9T0gMchLpfDD3ULmTIBRWoFv15SUB0vrLSx9pM7Yz6Y0DkZEyLo4u5J2JWGDxbu3IIK%2FrvPmDCEi0UkMnzhxVckXdtAGjC1WasrP9SJsQCqWJ4QgdVHPbCZoFgcNnYfiX3UDe2XI6Y2P0xgmd%2F0ujSnUWzesngAs3SWuXX%2BbZie%2FuqExCb38x1OBHkv5Yd8QQah1QIGeOQ1NbQ5XyXJoa1757t8UVcRDx8O5xP0faKu9h0tQ0lkoep8CVAfRnvDueYarK1t%2BwqqWZcyBcQsQ0F5VXG1cm5aJoKVz4o7cbVA%2FYuH31FogVpcn98jMpKA3ib%2F2IxqzhzLmCOVctS2mmyAfAFZ1FIIoonJtxlyAO8%2BujEUky3TBVfr7DMAkur%2BIn%2B4U4WvBylkkr6sD3L23St3mpqfibX%2Bn8AS4l9VbI%2Fy7CI87oULddvsdbIcpsuSVKf76dXOlXlE658oT%2BNT9|cksum%3A39287720687861340ce5a28247debd273b6c72860cb0|ampid%3APL_CLK|clp%3A2334524

Thoughts?

Did you "cold crash" the brew before bottling? If you were running the latest firmware for your Droid and started the brew from the app it will have done this automatically as part of the brewing program. The 48 hour cold crash is the key to settling the bulk of the hop debris into the trub before you bottle or keg.

You can use a stainless steel hop ball or tube if you prefer. Either should fit within your Droid. Then, unless you really want to the "cold crash" will be optional. The balls are good for about 30g of hops each and the tube even more but its size will displace a reasonable volume of liquid in the Droid and the hop pellets still swell up inside and potentially limit their exposure.

Whilst the Narci-Citrus IPA Brewprint uses 75 grams (3 sachets) of hops - have a look at my recent posts in the Narci-Citrus thread. I used 150 grams of hops for that brew. The filter worked perfectly and the beer is completely clear. I understand from posts made by the Brewart staff on here that they have also tested large quantities of hop pellets without issue.

[dcm]

15 hours ago, Dustin Frothman said:

Did you "cold crash" the brew before bottling? If you were running the latest firmware for your Droid and started the brew from the app it will have done this automatically as part of the brewing program. The 48 hour cold crash is the key to settling the bulk of the hop debris into the trub before you bottle or keg.

You can use a stainless steel hop ball or tube if you prefer. Either should fit within your Droid. Then, unless you really want to the "cold crash" will be optional. The balls are good for about 30g of hops each and the tube even more but its size will displace a reasonable volume of liquid in the Droid and the hop pellets still swell up inside and potentially limit their exposure.

Whilst the Narci-Citrus IPA Brewprint uses 75 grams (3 sachets) of hops - have a look at my recent posts in the Narci-Citrus thread. I used 150 grams of hops for that brew. The filter worked perfectly and the beer is completely clear. I understand from posts made by the Brewart staff on here that they have also tested large quantities of hop pellets without issue.

Thanks for the tips.  Yes, I did cold crash the brew.  This is my third dry hop batch but the only one that created sufficient hop sludge at the base of the fermenter to block the tube leading to the tap.  I was definitely thinking of a larger tube.  Next up is a crack at the Sierra Nevada "torpedo" look alike which looks to have 95g of hops (2 x "H2" - to be replaced with centennial) and 15g each of Magnum, Crystal and Citra.   Or maybe Pirate Life IPA.

[dcm]

On 20/10/2020 at 8:18 AM, dcm said:

Thanks for the tips.  Yes, I did cold crash the brew.  This is my third dry hop batch but the only one that created sufficient hop sludge at the base of the fermenter to block the tube leading to the tap.  I was definitely thinking of a larger tube.  Next up is a crack at the Sierra Nevada "torpedo" look alike which looks to have 95g of hops (2 x "H2" - to be replaced with centennial) and 15g each of Magnum, Crystal and Citra.   Or maybe Pirate Life IPA.

Yep, well, couldn't let the free shipping on orders over $200 slip by.  Let's just say that once this lot turns up, I'll be good for dry hopped beer into the new year :-)  

[BeerOClock]

I've brewed about 6 batches of XPA now using dry hops, tried my first bottle yesterday after 12 weeks in the bottle.  First  impressions are that the hops improve the flavour a lot over liquid hops (although I thought the liquid hops was great too). One thing I immediately noticed was that the head was huge, I think I need to halve the amount of sugar in the bottle to reduce it somewhat. It appeared to be much more bitter. Head retention was excellent.  I bought a stainless steel hop container because I was fed up with messing with the leaky adapter (see dcm's post above), and so was able to bottle straight from the droid.

However, does anyone know whether the alcohol content has gone up ?  Half way through my first bottle (Grolch size) I I could feel the alcohol kicking in, after two I was finished. Yes, I know I am a wimp. If I wanted to reduce the alcohol content what would I have to do?

[Captain 3 Droids]

16 minutes ago, John Parry said:

I've brewed about 6 batches of XPA now using dry hops, tried my first bottle yesterday after 12 weeks in the bottle.  First  impressions are that the hops improve the flavour a lot over liquid hops (although I thought the liquid hops was great too). One thing I immediately noticed was that the head was huge, I think I need to halve the amount of sugar in the bottle to reduce it somewhat. It appeared to be much more bitter. Head retention was excellent.  I bought a stainless steel hop container because I was fed up with messing with the leaky adapter (see dcm's post above), and so was able to bottle straight from the droid.

However, does anyone know whether the alcohol content has gone up ?  Half way through my first bottle (Grolch size) I I could feel the alcohol kicking in, after two I was finished. Yes, I know I am a wimp. If I wanted to reduce the alcohol content what would I have to do?

Hi John. The XPA is at 5.5%. You could reduce this to 4.5% by dropping off one of the E2 sachets. With the amount of hops I don’t think this will alter the taste to any great degree.

Are you putting in 2 sugar tabs per bottle? If so I’d  stay with that. Are you using a chilled glass, slow pour with steep angle to start with? Are the carbonation bubbles small and appear not to be excessive?

Cheers, Mark.

[BeerOClock]

Hey Mark,

So I am putting in a measured amount of sugar via a dedicated scoop. Not sure of the actual amount but I have been using the same amount in a Grolsch bottle for the liquid hops XPA (and every other brew I make) for years and the results has been a reasonable head. This is significantly more. Not really a big deal, I'll just get another scoop and adjust accordingly. The head is far better using the dry hops, much finer bubbles and it stays all the way to the end of the liquid. I do know how to pour!

 

Thanks for the tip re the E2 content, maybe I'll try that.

Edited November 29, 2020 by John Parry

[Captain 3 Droids]

1 minute ago, John Parry said:

Hey Mark,

So I am putting in a measured amount of sugar via a dedicated scoop. Not sure of the actual amount but I have been using the same amount in a Grolsch bottle for the liquid hops XPA (and every other brew I make) for years and the results has been a reasonable head. This is significantly more. Not really a big deal, I'll just get another scoop and adjust accordingly. The head is far better using the dry hops, much finer bubbles and it stays all the way to the end of the liquid. I do know how to pour!

 

Thanks for the tip re the E2 content, maybe I'll try that.

Sorry John, not meaning to be offensive about the pour but believe me there are a lot that don’t and the statement is only about the elimination of possible problems.

[BeerOClock]

No worries Captain, I was only joking. Appreciate the info, thanks.